


Mr. Delmar To The Rescue

by Spideyfan62



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Just Their Situation, Light Angst, Not Really Between Them, POV Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home Mid-Credits Scene, Protective Michelle Jones, Spideychelle-Relationship - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27663446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spideyfan62/pseuds/Spideyfan62
Summary: Peter was really, really nervous. Under normal circumstances, getting ready to enter a small Italian restaurant for your first public date with your girlfriend would be no big deal. Okay, it'd be a big deal in the sense that he'd normally have some major butterflies in his stomach as he constantly worried about making a mistake in any little thing he did or said and driving her away forever. That in and of itself would be bad enough.Looking at his situation now, Peter WISHED that was all he had to worry about.
Relationships: Delmar & Peter Parker, May Parker & Peter Parker (Mentioned), Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51
Collections: Spider-Man Public Identity Reveal





	Mr. Delmar To The Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, Peter and M.J. try to go on their first public outing after his identity was outed, eventually ending up at none other than Delmar's.

Peter was really, really nervous. Under normal circumstances, getting ready to enter a small Italian restaurant for your first public date with your girlfriend would be no big deal. Okay, it'd be a big deal in the sense that he'd normally have some major butterflies in his stomach as he constantly worried about making a mistake in any little thing he did or said and driving her away forever. That in and of itself would be bad enough. 

Looking at his situation now, Peter WISHED that was all he had to worry about. 

However, in his case, he was a superhero whose identity was revealed to the public a few months ago, not to mention being framed for murder and a terrorist attack. Sure, an international court had cleared him of all charges upon an intense scrutiny of the footage itself as well as several eyewitness accounts, but Peter quickly discovered that being cleared in court and the realm of public opinion were two completely different things. When he came back to New York, he was met with a myriad of reactions and a swarm of press everywhere. While the press had calmed down somewhat, having mostly moved on to whatever the most recent controversy was, the looks, words and other reactions from people hadn't stopped. 

Initially, he and M.J. mostly just hung out at school and at his and May's apartment. Her parents, despite seemingly being too busy to pay much attention to her life before, were suddenly severely disapproving of her being in a relationship with a vigilante. M.J. stood her ground though, maintaining that, until her parents were willing to properly give Peter a chance, they had no right to make her stop. She said they had still persisted in trying to get her to give up on the two of them, but she just ignored them, and eventually they begrudgingly left the matter alone. Peter felt extremely guilty over this; he hated that he was the reason for the latest rift between M.J. and her parents, and he knew that despite her tough, unflinching outer demeanor, the whole thing was hurting her too. Still, she remained loyal, steadfast and committed to the two of them, which Peter appreciated more than he could put into words. 

Finally, May ended up convincing Peter that he couldn't hide as his civilian self forever. He had been out as Spider-Man before and, while what he often encountered still wasn't fun, he could at least hide behind the mask. Going out just for fun, with nothing to hide how he reacted to anything was daunting. Throwing M.J. into the mix was even more so, not just because she would share in the scrutiny, but also because he was putting a target on her back for anyone who would seek retribution against him. May assured him that M.J. was smart and aware enough to know the risks, yet here she still was by his side. He talked it over with M.J, who agreed with his aunt's points and had simply been waiting for him to be comfortable enough with the idea. 

Now, here they were, just across the alley from her favorite restaurant (which she had corrected him three times already regarding its pronunciation), but his thoughts simply wouldn't leave him alone. 

A squeeze of her hand against his brought him back to the moment. 

"Come on," she said, nudging her head in the direction of their destination. "We can do this." 

Peter let out a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding in, offering a nod. 

"You're right," he said, turning to face the restaurant. 

"Of course I am," she teased. He turned to see her face in a full, proud smirk as she offered a playful wink. Peter smiled as he shook his head. Around most people, M.J. had a harder, no-nonsense demeanor, and she carried that a fair amount around him too. But it was this side, the playful, sweet, teasing side that only HE got to see, and that was worth more to him than anything in the world. 

They walked across the road once it was clear enough, stepping through the front doors together. Without fail, Peter could feel most of the eyes trained on him without looking. He waited for his spider-sense (the name he had come up with over Peter Tingle) to go off, but it didn't come, which helped him to settle down a little. He strode up to the host area. 

"Two please," he said meekly, holding up the proper amount of fingers just long enough to properly illustrate his request. The hostess offered him what appeared to be a strained smile, and motioned for them to follow her without a word. It was a bit chillier of an initial reception than Peter had hoped for, but was also half-expecting to be kicked out upon entry, so he still considered it a win. 

He and M.J. followed the woman a short distance to their table, taking their seats across from each other. 

"One moment please," the lady said before walking off. This struck Peter as a little bit odd, since she mentioned nothing of someone being with them soon, but he chalked it up to her being nervous for any number of reasons regarding serving Spider-Man. He grabbed a menu and began scanning through it, grateful that by now he had trained his enhanced hearing enough to not automatically pick up on the whispers people were surely conducting around him. 

"So," M.J. spoke up after a moment, breaking the silence, "you have any ideas? You know, about what to get?" 

Peter continued scanning the menu, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed a couple of options as he responded. 

"Just trying to narrow it down between a couple choices," he said. "When May and I get Italian, I usually get as many meatballs as possible on my pasta. Do you usually get that too?" 

When he looked up to meet M.J.'s eyes, his girlfriend looked...nervous? Her head was down and she seemed to be looking anywhere but at him for a moment. 

"M.J? You okay?" he asked. 

"Oh, yeah, sorry," she said, finally managing to make eye contact with him again. "I usually just get a salad." 

Peter looked at her with a perplexed look. "Contrary to popular belief, there's nothing wrong with that," he said, offering her a smile in the hopes of reassuring her. 

"I know," she smiled lightly back at him. 

"Okay," Peter said, looking back down at the menu. Another moment passed, then M.J. spoke up again. 

"I'm vegetarian," she said. Peter looked up and met her eyes, but she continued before he could speak up. "Well, I don't know if I should say that I'm vegetarian per say, I mean, I'm really just picky about what I eat, ya know? There's a lot of really terrible stuff that people put into most of our food, so there's not a lot I can usually pick from at a lot of places, and..."

Peter reached out and grabbed one of her hands, which she was frantically moving around to express herself, bringing it back down to rest on the table. 

"M.J, relax," he said quietly. "Actually, that's really great that you know so much about this kind of thing. Maybe you can help me steer clear of the bad stuff. My already crazy metabolism might appreciate that some."

He could see the wave of relief wash over her face. "Really?" she said. 

"Absolutely," he said. "Though I should warn you, I'll probably be pretty stubborn about a couple different things that I just can't bring myself to part with." 

M.J. smiled a bright smile, even as her eyes narrowed. "I'll have to take that as a challenge then." 

"Yeah, good luck with that," he said, offering a teasing wink of his own. 

Just as things relaxed between them, a worker approached their table. 

"Excuse me, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you two to leave." 

"Why?" M.J. asked without hesitation. Peter could see the man shrink a little as he made eye contact with her. 

"I'm afraid that your presence has caused a disturbance among some of the other customers," the man said meekly. 

"Yeah?" M.J. said, rising slowly from her seat, giving the man a look that Peter was sure would make Nick Fury himself back down. "Well, there's about to be an even bigger disturbance if this place doesn't grow a backbone and..."

Peter then jumped up, getting in between M.J. and the worker. "Come on M.J, we should get out of here," he said, motioning with his head towards a couple police officers he just noticed step in through a side door. M.J. caught on to them as well and reluctantly nodded her head to indicate she agreed. The last thing either of them needed was to make a scene and further mess with Spider-Man's reputation. The two of them quietly took their leave from the building. 

"Well," Peter said once they stepped out the doors, "guess we'll have to figure something else out for..."

"Can you believe that!?" M.J. spat angrily. "The NERVE of that place! You've done so much good for the city, and this is how..." She caught herself in the middle of her rant, her face immediately signaling regret. "Sorry, I'm sure that doesn't help." 

"It's fine," Peter replied as they continued down the street. "Well, it's not fine, but it's just what I'll have to live with for now. However, we still have the dilemma of where we're going to eat. Any ideas?" 

M.J. paused. "Not really," she admitted. "Like I mentioned earlier, I'm kind of picky about what I eat, and there aren't many places in the city that fit into that." 

"You never know," Peter said, shrugging. "I just might like one of them. Where's the closest one?"

\---

An hour later and a few stops later, and they still had their dilemma. 

Honestly, Peter was kind of surprised at the reaction of places like this. Sure, one restaurant turning him away wasn't all that shocking, but everywhere they went, they were met with no luck, sometimes not even making it through the door. A manager at one of them even had the gall to say that it was "nothing personal, just business," but it all felt personal to him. 

"Maybe we should just go back to the apartment," Peter said. "I'm sure May would be more than willing to..."

Someone calling out to them stopped him mid-sentence. 

"Hey, Mr. Parker!!"

Peter turned to see none other than Mr. Delmar, who was waving at them from just outside his store. Peter looked to see and, sure enough, he was on the same street he had been going to, especially after school, for his favorite sandwiches. He couldn't believe he was distracted enough to miss it, since he had done so for years. 

He turned to M.J.

"Shall we?" he said. 

She shrugged. "Why not?" He had mentioned the store and it's owner to her before, but had yet to actually take her there, so now was as good a time as anyway. He lead the way, following the man inside the store. 

Once he was inside, Peter's jaw dropped at what he saw: the place was decorated top to bottom in Spider-Man merchandise, with posters on the walls and even some things hanging from the ceiling. 

"What do ya think, amigo?" Mr. Delmar asked. 

"I...it's....when did you do all this?" Peter asked, finally turning to the man, moving to the front counter. 

"As soon as I got news that you were cleared of those charges that nut case Jameson falsely accused you of," the man said, smiling. "I knew you couldn't have done all that nonsense they were saying forever. People on the news, man, they'll talk about anything that gets them airtime anymore." 

"Finally, someone who speaks my language," M.J. spoke up. 

Mr. Delmar then looked to her. "Ah, this must be that really tough but pretty girl you wouldn't stop talking about for months before your big trip!" 

Peter's face suddenly turned very warm as M.J.'s eyes shifted back towards him as well. "Ah, you shouldn't have," she said, smirking a proud smirk at him. 

"Anyway," Peter said, trying desperately to get the attention off of him, "you still got my usual? M.J. and I haven't had a lot of luck with warm welcomes at restaurants today." 

"Bah," the man said, waving a hand dismissively as he went to get the ingredients to make Peter's sandwich. "They're all just a bunch of cowards who are trying to save face and avoid controversy. Give them time, they'll come around." 

In a matter of moments, the sandwich was ready. 

"What about you, my lady?" Mr. Delmar said, once again turning to M.J. "I'm sure you're boy here has told you we have the best Sandwiches in Queens!" 

"Hmm," M.J. said, looking somewhat skeptically at the menu. "Well, I see a couple things I might like, but I have some questions first." 

Mr. Delmar chuckled. "Don't worry, we make sure all of our meat comes from animals that haven't been...interfered with, shall we say. The same goes for our cheese, and we only use untainted vegetables as well. No pesticides, no artificial preservatives, nothing like that; just everything as nature intended it to be." 

M.J. ended up settling on a sandwich with a meat substitute, which was made ready just as fast as Peter's was. 

"Thanks, Mr. Delmar," Peter said as he paid for the food. "Seriously, you're a lifesaver." 

"Nah, that's your job," the man said. "I should know, since I'm one of the people you rescued!" 

"Yeah, sorry about that whole thing," Peter said sheepishly. "Things got out of control that night." 

"Don't worry about it," Mr. Delmar replied. "The insurance ended up paying for a lot of things I was going to need done anyway. Besides, you busted the guy selling all that high tech stuff, so there ya go." 

The man then turned to M.J. 

"You keep this superhero in line," he said. 

"Oh don't worry," she said, her deadpan expression as evident as ever. "I got this." 

"Thanks again man," Peter said before the two of them stepped out the door. 

"You know, I think kinda like that guy," M.J. said. 

"Yeah, Mr. Delmar's pretty great," Peter replied as he held up his sandwich. "Plus, best sandwiches in Queens." 

"We'll see about that," M.J. said as she unwrapped her sandwich. She gave Peter one last skeptical look before taking a big bite of it. She appeared thoughtful as she chewed.

"Well?" Peter said. 

After swallowing, M.J. finally replied. 

"Okay, that actually was really good." 

"Told you," Peter said, taking a bite of his own sandwich. Somehow, a sandwich from Delmar's always managed to save the day. 

Plus, in this case, a date.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> My continued prayers for you all; please, stay as safe and healthy as you can! 
> 
> "Those who are kind benefit themselves, but the cruel bring ruin on themselves." Proverbs 11:17


End file.
